crochet room in which there were now at least three partially done scarves, a half-done afghan, an almost-finished hat, and two squares for a baby blanket.
“My point is, I don’t want to have a pile of half-done things. If you notice, all the washcloths are complete.” Dinah went back to her chain stitches while Adele and CeeCee traded glances. Still Sheila didn’t say a word. It was beginning to make me tense.
“Ladies, remember we’re supposed to be hooking for charity,” CeeCee said, obviously dropping the washcloth issue. “We need to come up with a new project. Anybody have any ideas?”
The mission of the Tarzana Hookers was to make projects to either give directly to those in need or to help raise money at a charity sale. It was because of the mission that Mrs. Shedd had invited the group to meet at the bookstore. And it was why she paid for the yarn for all the projects.
We all looked up from our work, except Sheila. She had managed to dig into the stitches with the smaller hook. CeeCee had reminded her to keep the next row of her stitches loose, and Sheila seemed to be mouthing the words as she worked. It appeared to be a kind of meditation for her, enabling her to put whatever was bothering her on the shelf.
“Is this some kind of meeting?” a woman’s voice asked, distracting us from CeeCee’s question. The speaker was dressed in what I’d call country-club casual: taupe slacks and white polo shirt with a navy sweater tied around her shoulders. I recognized the not-a-hair-out-of-place look that always made me pat my hair hoping to eliminate the usual flyaways.
“Hi, Patricia,” I said with a welcoming smile. “We’re the Tarzana Hookers.” I held up my hook and scarf as a visual aid. “Want to join?” I thought since it was a bookstore event and I was in charge of such things it was okay for me to do the inviting. “This is Patricia Orrington,” I said before introducing everyone at the table. I explained that she was the author of
“It’s Bradford now, Molly. You keep forgetting. As in Benjamin Bradford who is running for city council.” At that, she put a campaign button down for each of us. Everyone looked at theirs, except Sheila. She hadn’t even glanced up in acknowledgment when I told Patricia her name. Was I the only one noticing she wasn’t participating?
“So, you’re the Tarzana Hookers.” She walked around the table, examining our work. When she passed Sheila, she gave us all a raised-eyebrow look before moving on. “I would like to join you. This is just the sort of thing I need. You know, involving myself in some neighborhood thing.”
“Do you crochet?” Adele asked.
“No,” Patricia answered, turning her attention to CeeCee and asking more about the group.
When CeeCee explained we made things for charity, Patricia seemed even more interested. “Even better. What are you working on?” She checked out our varied projects, giving CeeCee’s donut a particularly puzzled look. Adele explained these were our own projects and that we were looking for a group project.
“Well, I have the charity,” Patricia said, sitting down. She opened up her large purse and took out some yarn. That seemed a little odd, as if maybe she knew all about us and had planned to join before she even got here. “The Women’s Haven. It’s a shelter for abused and homeless women and their children. It’s Benjamin’s pet charity. Bradford Industries donated the building they’re housed in.”
Adele’s eyes bugged out at what Patricia did next. She took out circular knitting needles on which hung the beginning of something sunny yellow. “This will be fun.”
“That’s not crochet. And this is a crochet group. A crochet-only group,” Adele said, looking like she was going to blow. “If we were a knit-and-crochet group we would be called the Tarzana Hookers and Needle Heads.”
CeeCee gave Adele one of her cease-and-desist looks. We all agreed we were crochet only and that we liked it better than knitting, but Adele was rabid about it.
“If you want to join us, you’ll have to crochet,” CeeCee said in a pleasant voice. “Adele or I would be glad to teach you.”
Patricia put her needles away and moved closer to CeeCee. “I think I’d rather have you teach me.” So far she hadn’t made any reference to CeeCee’s celebrity status, but I had a feeling the wheels were turning in her head, trying to figure out a way to get CeeCee’s endorsement for her husband. Patricia turned to me. “Didn’t I hear you were the one who solved Ellen Sheridan’s murder?”
“Right now, the only mystery Pink should be concerned with is what happened to the missing stitches,” Adele said, holding up my work in progress and pointing out how the brown scarf was getting narrower and narrower. “You’re missing the last stitch on each row,” she added with just a touch of triumph. “Time to unravel.” She turned her attention to Patricia. “That’s one of the beauties of crochet compared to knitting: the ease of undoing your mistakes.”
Sheila seemed to have lost the meditation aspect of her crocheting and was back to hunched shoulders and tight stitches. Suddenly her head shot up, and she threw her work in the center of the table. Her hook pinged against the hard surface. “That’s it. I can’t do it. I can’t do this anymore.”
She pushed back from the table and stood up. CeeCee picked up the royal blue yarn from the middle of the table and began to unravel it while at the same time suggesting Sheila sit down. “Is there something bothering you besides your crochet work?”
Sheila’s face said it all. Her brows were scrunched together, her eyes were filling with water, and her mouth quivered with sadness.
“Yes,” Sheila said in a tremulous voice.
“Why don’t you tell us about it,” Dinah said.
“Maybe we can help,” CeeCee offered. Then we all started encouraging Sheila to talk.
Patricia rapped on the table. “Girls, if you all talk at once we’re not going to be able to hear Sheila.” The talking stopped and everyone looked expectantly at Sheila, except for Dinah and me. We traded knowing smiles. Just what the group needed: another person who wanted to be boss.
It took a bit of doing, but CeeCee got Sheila to sit back down at the table. Sheila started drumming her fingers on the table, a sure sign she was really close to the edge. I went over and hugged her, both to make her feel better and to try and stop her fingers. Between the vibe she was giving off and the finger tapping, I was getting nervous. Patricia subtly edged her chair farther away from Sheila. She always seemed to keep herself under complete control, so I supposed seeing someone having a meltdown was upsetting for her. I stood behind Sheila and laid my hands on her shoulders, which for some reason seemed to have a calming effect. I urged her to take some deep breaths, and gradually I could feel her extreme tension release.
“Okay, dear, we’re all ready,” CeeCee urged.
Sheila had chin-length brown hair that hung straight and usually covered part of her round face. She was in her early thirties and the youngest in the group.
“I didn’t want to tell you,” she began finally. “I mean, you all have such good jobs. CeeCee with your TV show, Molly does the event thing with the bookstore, Dinah is a college professor.”
“Just an instructor,” Dinah corrected.
“Whatever, it’s still a good job. And Adele runs the kids’ department here at the bookstore,” Sheila said.
I noticed Adele didn’t correct her. But she didn’t quite run the kids’ department. She only handled story time. Mrs. Shedd did the buying, and any book signings went through me.
“So, I thought you wouldn’t understand.” She stopped and took a few deep breaths. “My job as receptionist at the gym doesn’t pay that much. I tried to get more shifts, but it was a no-go. Something about they don’t want me to be full-time because they’d have to pay benefits. So, I thought maybe I could sell some of the scarves I’ve made.” At that she took one out of her bag, and as usual we all oohed and aahed.
It was hard to believe the beautiful scarf was made by the same person who had just thrown her work across the table. Patricia picked it up and examined it.
“You made this?” She didn’t have to say more. We all knew what she meant. We had had the same reaction the first time we saw one of Sheila’s creations.
“When I’m alone I’m more relaxed when I crochet, and I use one of these.” Sheila produced what looked like a plastic crochet hook on steroids.
It wasn’t the stitches that stood out on Sheila’s scarf—they were just single and double crochet. It was the different yarns and the way she’d mixed them. The scarf on the table had a base of a royal blue ribbon mohair, but
